Lessons Learned
by The Mother Rose
Summary: This is a one-shot based off another fanfic story I read. In that story, Harry never returns to Privet Drive at the end of his first Hogwarts year. As I was reading it, I'd the thought of what would the neighbors believe when he fails to return from his 1st year of secondary schooling. Especially since Vernon and Petunia gave two different stories about which school he'd attend.


**Author's Notes: I do not own Harry Potter. In no way shape or form do I make money off this work. That said this story is not canon. Nor is it meant to be. This was an idea I had after reading a story in which Harry was removed from the guardianship of Vernon and Petunia during his first year at Hogwarts. I wasn't sure where it would go and quite frankly some of the aspects would never work in reality. But having now finished the tale, I find I like it as it is. Hopefully you will enjoy it also.**

Lessons Learned

A Harry Potter fanfiction

By: The Mother Rose

An undistinguished man of middle years sat on a typical porch watching as the shadows stole silently across the world bringing about the end of another long and lazy summer day. He listened to the children of the area at play as he watched the sun slowly setting on his beloved England. His face was lined with age and his hair was peppered with the iron grey that came with approaching old age. Only his eyes showed the hard won wisdom he'd gained during his life. A magazine showing a fly fisherman lay unattended on his lay and on the table beside his chair a flat-bottomed mug of liquid sat beside an ashtray holding his cherished long-stem pipe. The mug was a remnant of his days as a seaman in the royal navy and bore the seal of the boat he'd served upon before going into the legal services department. A small bag of rough-cut, cherry flavored tobacco lay on it's side near the ashtray and next to the burning candle he used to light the thin piece of ash wood he used to light his pipe. It was his custom to sit here on the porch each evening enjoying a solitary bowl of the life stealing weed as he watched each day come to a close.

Night was falling and soon the children would be called in by weary parents yearning for the peace and quiet that only came when the kids were abed for the night. Soon they would get their wish and the neighborhood would fall quiet. At their stage in life, the precious moments came fast a furious but every minute they could get of peace and quiet ranked higher than the memories they were making as their children grew into adults. It would only be when their children grew up and moved away from home that they would realize just how fleeting these days truly were. For now, they just looked forward to the time when their children were soundly sleeping in their beds, safe for the moment and more importantly, quiet.

But this man had never had any children of his own so he took pleasure in the sound of his neighbors happy children and like many in his position, counted each one as a child of his as well. Because they were the children of his neighbors. The children who came around for light chores to earn pocket money during the summer or for treats on Halloween and to sing carols during the Christmas season. They came to sell things for the scouts and school functions or sports teams as well and he always made sure he bought something even as he knew he could use none of it. But that was how a responsible adult supported their neighborhood children and helped to raise them into responsible, caring adults in their own right. So that was what he did. And everything he bought from the children he'd give out as Christmas presents to those on his list. Mostly clients through the firm he worked at. These days he only worked pat-time as he was semi-retired now but he still had a rather long list of clients who preferred to deal with him rather than trust their legal needs to a newcomer in the firm.

Tonight, he wasn't really watching the children, though. Instead, he was staring at the completely normal looking house catacorner from his own. A house where once a week the service he'd hired, when the truth of the house broke over the neighborhood, came to mow the lawns and trim the bushes and hedges and once a year repaired any damage done to the outside of the building. To keep the house looking normal. Just as it always had. Because that was a part of the story of that house. The tragic story. A normal looking house that had hidden a great evil. Some would say it'd hidden the greatest of evils and in his opinion, they'd be right.

He knew though, as did all the old residents of this area, that house was anything but normal. No, it was a house of horrors for a neighborhood like this one. Because in that house the unspeakable had happened. And that was why he had hired the service to tend the house and property. Because for him and his neighbors, the house was a reminder of past mistakes. A reminder of just what their suppositions could allow. What mistakes they could cover and hide. A reminder of just how far they were willing to let their collective unwillingness to see and observe go. And for that reason, they, the neighbors on this quiet street, needed it to look just as it always had. To be the reminder they all needed to never let it happen again. The house served as their social conscious now and so long as he was alive he planned to make certain it always would.

A few steps away from where he sat a screen door squeaked loudly as a young woman stepped onto the porch. Pulling a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, she tapped one out as she crossed the porch to sit beside him. She quickly lit the cigarette, it's end glowing a bright, angry, cherry red as she drew the smoke into her lungs. Tension bled from her shoulders as she exhaled the lung full of grey smoke into the darkening night a few seconds later. It was a hard and fast rule of the house, set by his wife when she had still lived, that all smoking would be done on the porch where the smoke residue couldn't taint the house walls and furnishings.

"What are you seeing tonight, Uncle?" she asked quietly. She, like her Uncle, was a quiet, unassuming young woman who found working in a quiet library well suited to her tastes. She'd moved in with her Uncle six months ago when she'd finished her schooling and found a job in this area at the local lending library. She'd not yet had cause to regret it. He had no one but her these days since her Aunt had died and, though it was unusual these days for young people of her generation to willingly move in with their older relatives in order to care for them and be there for them, she found her Uncle to be good company.

He turned his head towards her and chuckled quietly. "The past, Breezy. The past."

She took another drag from the cigarette as she turned to observe the street blowing the grey smoke out into the not quite quiet evening. Light blue wisps of smoke curled lazily from the burning end of her cigarette as she held it lightly between her fingers, staring out into the gathering darkness that was spreading over the neighborhood. The children were beginning to thin out now with only the oldest of them still gathered in small clumps here and there. She took another drag making the end of her cigarette glow a bright fire red and temporarily ending the wisps of blue smoke. Tilting her head upwards she blew a new stream of grey smoke into the air before asking, "Anything in particular? Or just the random memories of a long gone childhood?"

He chuckled quietly at his niece's veiled reference to his approaching old age. "Memories of that house there and the mistakes we made concerning the people who called that house home," he replied with a tilt of his head. His voice held a touch of bitterness.

The young lady frowned as she followed the head tilt to the house across the way. "The empty house? Number Four? What about it?" She was new to this area as her parents hadn't liked her Aunt and Uncle and had never brought her to visit when she was growing up. She'd known they lived here, of course. But her father, while not a criminal himself, wasn't the kind of man to be comfortable around anyone who worked in law enforcement or believed in God, Queen and Country above all else. And her mother had supported her father in everything he said or did.

So when she'd gotten a job at the local lending library, she'd written to her Uncle asking for a place to stay while she looked for a place of her own. He'd written back and told her she was welcome to move in with no need to look further for a home whenever she was ready. She'd never looked back. The job didn't pay much and most likely never would but she liked it and had no intention of looking for a higher paying job elsewhere. She didn't need to as Uncle had told her she had a home here as long as she wanted it. He had no children to leave it to and his wife had died before she'd moved here. The house was paid for so there would be no mortgage for her to assume. All she had to do was pay to transfer the title and then pay the yearly taxes. Her small wages could easily cover that and still leave her enough to live comfortably on.

She'd gone to Uni to get her credentials and she was more than glad to actually find work in the field she'd studied at all. Some of her peers weren't that lucky. With the advent of computers hard copy books were slowly becoming a thing of the past. More and more these days people were choosing not to read books for their entertainment. Which was making it harder for Libraries and Book Sellers to keep their doors open. So many of her peers who had studied in the same field as herself had been unable to find a posting after getting their credentials. Either that or the postings they found didn't offer a living wage.

But she was lucky. She had a comfortable place to live where she didn't need to worry about paying rent or getting evicted for some random reason. She and her Uncle rubbed along quite well together. Unlike many of her generation, she didn't yearn after the bright city lights and the never-ending life said to exist there. She was content to sit home in the evening just listening to her Uncle or reading a good book.

"That house wasn't always empty, Breezy. Once upon a time a family lived there. A family of three. Well, four really. The family had a foundling child they took in when he was a fifteen month old baby. We all thought that family was one of the best of us. Charitable and giving people we all stove to emulate in our own lives."

The bitterness in his voice when he said that last was so heavy she couldn't miss it. But knowing her Uncle quite well by now, she didn't ask for explanations. He'd tell her if he wanted her to know. But if he thought it none of her business or if it had something to do with one of his clients, nothing she could say or do would suffice to make him tell her. He'd been a solicitor during his working years after leaving the Queen's service and still kept his hand in at his old firm choosing to work part-time with the clients he'd built up over the years. But all that meant to her right now was that he knew how to keep his mouth shut on matters that weren't open to the public. Instead, she crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray on her side of the wicker bench and waited patiently. She didn't have long to wait.

"The family that lived there was named Dursley. Vernon and Petunia Dursley. They had a son, Dudley, who was their pride and joy and we all thought them to be a family just like our own. Dudley was a happy, cheerful child. A bit spoilt as all babies generally are. But a good boy nonetheless. Or so we thought."

"When they took in their orphaned nephew, who was only a few months younger than their own son, we thought them the most charitable people we'd ever meet. After all, most of us wouldn't have even considered taking another child into our homes like that. They were just starting out. Vernon was relatively new to his job and wasn't making a lot of money yet. Petunia was of necessity a housewife and a new mother. We admired them for taking the foundling in and giving him a home. because we knew it wasn't something we would've done ourselves."

"Even if said child was directly related to us and had no other living kin as was the case with him. Mrs. Dursley was the boys' maternal Aunt and according to what she told everyone, his parents had died in a drunken car crash when his Father had lost control of the wheel. So it was either she take the boy in or he'd go to an orphanage in the city. That was the first lie we were told about the child and his background but none of us knew it at the time. Though it wouldn't be the last."

"Most of us around here thought she should have let him go to the Orphanage and let him take his place with the other children of ne'er-do-wells. But we also admired her and her husband for taking the boy in. In hindsight, we were right. It would've been better for the child to be placed into an orphanage where he'd be just one more mouth to feed and body to cover. He might have had a chance then."

"The boy, Harry, was as different from the Dursley trio as it was possible to get. Exotic in his coloring while they were plain and ordinary. Bright of mind and heart where they were dim and dull. Small in stature but quick of foot while they were large and ponderous. Well, except for Petunia. She was so thin she could give Twiggy a run for her money. And I think that was the main reason we had no trouble believing the lies those two spread around about the children in their house. And boy did they spread a lot of lies. Lies we, the neighborhood, were all too willing to swallow. For some time there, it seemed like there was nothing that could go wrong in the area that wasn't the fault of the Dursley Foundling as we all called him. Not one neighbor ever called the boy by his name. He was always the Dursley Foundling. As if it was a crime to be an orphan. Something distasteful."

"It wouldn't be until he disappeared that anybody would actually stop to think about what we knew for a fact about him. Or about his cousin, Dudley. When the boy, Harry, disappeared, it was like the veil came off our eyes and fell away from our minds. And we were finally able to see and think for ourselves again. It would still take us months to understand the lies of that family though. To see just how they'd lied to all of us and made fools out of us all."

"At that time, everybody knew Dudley Dursley. And not just on this street. He was known throughout the housing district. Every man, woman and child living here knew that boy both by name and by description. In fact, very few areas of the entirety of Little Whining have no idea who that boy was. But he was best known here in the housing district."

"Funny thing was, our children had never been as fooled to the truth of that house and it's residents as we, the adults, were. They'd always known the truth that house hid. And more than one child had tried to tell us what they knew. But we wouldn't listen to them. More than one set of parents here round had severely punished their own children for lying about Dudley when said children accused Dudley of being the bully who'd beaten them or a friend of theirs up. Or claimed they saw Dudley and his gang doing something they'd been told not to do and making a mess of a public area. Even when said parents would later see one of the gang with something they knew belonged to their own kid, parents around here still believed the gang belonged to Harry. Not Dudley. Because Dudley's parents told us all how Harry was always picking on his cousin and trying to pin the blame for his own bad deeds on their good son."

"Why," the aforementioned Breezy asked barely breathing in case her simple question caused her Uncle to clam up.

Her Uncle was locked deep into his memories now and wouldn't be deterred from passing on this life lesson he and his neighbors had learned the hard way. "Because Vernon and Petunia Dursley told everyone it was Harry who was the bully beating up on the children and stole from them. Harry, who was the vandal that destroyed public gathering places and buildings. Harry, who stole merchandise from the stores and neighborhood homes when the owners were away. Harry, who killed family pets and harassed the elderly residents. Harry, who ran with a gang of hoodlums and troublemakers. Harry, who skipped school to go hang out on the street corners or just run wild. And we, the adults, listened to and believed them because they were adults just like us."

"Everyone believed them. After all, they belonged here. Vernon was a fast rising executive in a large, privately owned corporation. Petunia was a housewife with a degree in homemaking from a higher learning institution like many of the housewives around here. Another lie as it turned out. She had gone to an institute of higher learning. That much was true. But she'd never graduated because she fell pregnant with Dudley during her first term there. She dropped out of school when she and Vernon married to give their son legitimacy and moved here. To that house. But for us, Dudley had been born here. He was a son of the neighborhood."

"Harry, though. He was the outsider. His parents weren't our kind. They had never lived in this area. Yet another lie as it turned out. Harry's parents had been married when he was conceived making him more like the other children around here than Dudley ever could be. but at the time we didn't know that. To us, Dudley having been born to this neighborhood meant, he was our child. Thanks to their lies we believed Harry parents weren't on our social level. So neither was he. It was easy for us to believe the child of drunken dead-beats would be a juvenile criminal who'd grow up to become a burden on the system. Much easier than believing one of our own could at any rate."

"So we shut our eyes. And yes, Breezy girl. We did it of our own freewill. Pretended we didn't see Harry working all hours of the day and night and in all types of weather around the property over there when things got destroyed at the school or in the play park. Pretended we didn't know Harry was at home when little Johnny or Susie would run in crying because they'd gotten targeted by the local bully again. Pretended we didn't notice his bruises he could only have gotten behind the closed doors of that house as he didn't have them earlier in the day or the day before when we'd last seen him."

"But most of all, those of us who lived on this street closed our ears to the screams of pain we knew was coming from Harry inside that house. Because you see, we did hear him screaming and crying out in pain. And always the next time we'd see him outside he'd be sporting injuries. Injuries, we never questioned as to whether or not he deserved. Injuries we knew were too large, too expansive to have been caused by a mere incident of clumsiness as they'd tell us they were. We didn't see because we didn't want to. We didn't hear because that would mean admitting things weren't as they seemed to be. Because it would mean we owed it to him to intervene. To get him a better placement. A safer placement."

"Just as we closed our minds to the cruelty of the adult Dursley's in that they never once bought Harry clothing of his own. Even as we'd sneer at him and scorn him for looking so ragamuffin and scruffy in his too big hand-me-downs from Dudley, we knew in the silence of our minds it wasn't his fault he'd no decent clothing to wear. We all knew it was their responsibility to buy him decent clothing and school supplies since they'd agreed to take him in and raise him to adulthood. But it was easier to blame him for failing to conform than it was to admit they weren't the people we believed them to be. Everything Harry had was a hand-me-down from Dudley. Even the supplies he used for school were things first purchased for Dudley's use. Because his Aunt and Uncle bought nothing at all just for him. Even the glasses he wore, Petunia picked from a charity bin and that was only because the boy couldn't see at all well without them. The teachers had told her he needed them but it wasn't until they made it clear if she didn't provide them, they were obligated to call in the authorities that she bothered herself to get them for him. And all of us, everyone who knew him or dealt with him, knew those glasses weren't the right prescription for him. But again we ignored what we knew. All of us felt he should be glad to have them at all. Because he wasn't one of us. "

"The ladies of the Afternoon Tea Set and Welcoming Committee would laud Petunia for being so generous as to give him her own sons clothes to wear while commenting on how ungrateful Harry was to not take proper care of them. None of us gave even a seconds thought to realize there was no way he could've made those clothes fit him as he wasn't anywhere near the same size of a boy as Dudley. He wasn't old enough to mend the clothes or tailor them for his smaller build. Nor were the clothes suitable for him with his different coloring and all. So nothing he could've done with those clothes would've made the slightest bit of difference. We were just content to use those ill-fitting rags as proof he wasn't one of us and never would be."

"That boy, Harry. He lived in that house with them for a good ten years and yet it never once occurred to any of us that made him just as much a child of the neighborhood as Dudley or any of the other kids around here. Sure, he wasn't born here as Dudley and so many of the other kids were. We found out he was actually born in Wales where his parents had lived until their untimely deaths. But he'd lived here from infancy. This was the only home he'd ever really known. Here was where he learned to walk and talk and run about. Here was where he learned to read and write and calculate. Here was where he learned right from wrong, good from bad. He was a child of this neighborhood just the same as all the other children. But we refused to accept him."

"The Dursley's took Harry in when he was fifteen months old and every time there was trouble in the neighborhood, Petunia or Vernon would lay the blame on Harry telling us all how it wasn't their fault the boy was a delinquent. He was predisposed to it simply because his parents had been undesirables when they were alive. And we believed them. Even when we knew there was no possible way it could be his fault."

"Vernon and Petunia said he was a born delinquent and not a one of us stop to question how it wasn't their fault. They'd raise him from infancy and yet claimed his delinquent ways weren't their fault? If not theirs, then who's? According to them, it was his parents fault. The parents who died in a drunken crash. And we went along with their story. We blamed him too. Said he was born of bad seed and bad seed was all he'd ever be."

"It wasn't until he went missing any one thought to question the things they said. And by then it was too late. Little Harry was gone. And no one knew where to."

"Petunia and Vernon had told everyone he was to attend Stonewall with the other kids who couldn't get into a good boarding school. But somewhere between the ending of Primary school and the start of the new school year the boy disappeared. Not that we realized it at the time. We didn't. Too used to pretending we didn't see him to realize we really weren't seeing him around here anymore."

"When we did realize, we, at first, thought they'd gotten him into a boarding school after all. For their income bracket, boarding schools are the preferred way to educate the children of the household. But we were suspicious because we knew she'd said he was to attend Stonewall and that meant we should've been seeing him in the neighborhood in the afternoons. Stonewall's a day school. Kids that attend there go home in the afternoons and spend the weekend at home. So we should've been seeing him walking to and from school or working in the yards like always. And we weren't. We weren't seeing him around the neighborhood anywhere. Or any when."

"A decade of watching him, had made us hyper aware of him even as we tried to pretend we didn't see him at all. We found we didn't like not knowing where the boy was or what he was up to. So we, the men of the neighborhood, asked the women who mixed and mingled with Petunia to ask about him and see if she'd reveal where he was now. She was always more forthcoming with the tales and stories than Vernon was as he'd get too caught up in complaining about the boy and his hardship in raising him to remember the question we'd asked him. Now we know that was deliberate because Vernon couldn't lie as well as Petunia could. Or maybe it was just we men are more apt to spot the lies than the womenfolk are."

"September the first, 1991. He was eleven at the time. Just turned eleven a month earlier on the 31st of July. That was the last time anyone saw him that we know of. He was in the backseat of Vernon's car when Vernon drove off towards the city like normal. It was a work day and strange to see Harry in the car which was why it was remembered when we finally figured out something was wrong. But at the time, no one thought anything of it. It was the start of a new school year and Harry was school age. So those who did think about it just thought Vernon was driving him to show him the route to his new school. At the end of the work day, Vernon came home alone. Without Harry. And none of us thought anything of it. Because again that wasn't unusual."

"A couple of the ladies asked Petunia about him as she'd told them the boy would be going to Stonewall. I have to admit the women played Petunia well. They knew exactly what to say to get her to reveal information she'd no doubt never intended to reveal."

"Petunia fed them a line about the boy going to a strict, no-nonsense school for incurably criminal boys. She even made up a name for the school. St. Brutus. But that was her mistake. One of the last she'd ever make. By giving out a name for the school, she gave the neighborhood a way to verify her story. Which is exactly what happened. The neighborhood brought the name to me because I had the resources to verify it while most of them didn't. Solicitor, remember. Though I doubt she actually knew just how much I could do with only the name of the school they'd supposedly enrolled the boy into."

"Naturally, I ran a check on the school name she gave. Just as I checked the register for Stonewall. While there is a St. Brutus School for the Criminally Inclined, that isn't the name she gave the ladies. Nor is it a school that would've ever accepted his enrollment. It isn't a school for eleven year old children. No matter what their criminal record might be. And much as we wanted to believe he was a bad seed up to all kinds of criminality, fact was, Harry didn't have a criminal record of any kind. Not in any Police department files. So he'd never have gotten sent to one of our Juvenile Offender schools."

"St. Brutus though. That school is for adults only. Adults who didn't finish their education and need to learn workplace related skills to avoid having to one day return to prison for lack of any other way to make a living. It's staffed by professionals from every walk of life to teach job and workplace related skills to those who have none. Those who are only criminals because they have no other way to get by in the world. And not every criminal released from a crown run facility qualifies to get enrolled into it. Only those who prove during their incarceration they really don't wish to return to their former criminal habits once they're released get a place at the school."

"Harry Potter would never have been sent to that school as even with all our beliefs of his bad tendencies, he didn't have a record of juvenile delinquency or time served in a juvenile facility. Nor was he an adult as is required for enrollment there."

"But by the time I learned that information, Harry had been gone for well over a year. He'd turned twelve while we were removing our blinders. yes, it took us that long to open our eyes and wake up. At least, we thought he had. It took time for us to realize chances were good he'd never turn twelve at all."

"Part of that was because, when they realized we knew the boy wasn't attending a boarding school as they said he was, they fed us another lie. Claimed when they told him he'd be going to a boarding school, he'd thrown a fit and run away. Tried to tell us the boy was probably living as one of those dirty beggar boys you see on the street corners in the city."

"Some of the women believed them and convinced their menfolk Petunia and Vernon had no reason to lie to them about the boy. But others of us, we didn't buy it. After all, for a boy like that, almost any boarding school would be a godsend. Three good meals a day plus a roof over his head and an education to learn a trade? Not to mention less actual work needing to be done daily to earn those meals and his warm sleeping place. We thought the boy'd most likely jump at the opportunity to go to a school far away from here. And we knew he was smart. Smarter than Dudley or a lot of the other kids around here. So we thought almost any boarding school would've been happy to have him on their rolls."

"Maybe he did run off, Uncle. Children aren't always practical, you know. Maybe the school they wanted to send him to really wasn't a good school. Or maybe he didn't think it was. They could've told him it'd be even worse than the life he lived under their care. Scared him into running away instead," Breezy said trying to justify the Dursley version of what had happened to the boy she didn't know, and from what she gathered, would never know.

"No, Breezy Girl. No, he didn't. You see, if he'd run off it was their duty to call the police and file a report on him. They had legal custody of him. He was their responsibility every bit as much as Dudley was. He was only an eleven year old boy at the time he should've begun secondary schooling. The law is quite clear on what parents or guardians are required to do for any child under their care. I checked down at the local to see if such a report existed for him. So did a few of the other barristers, solicitors and coppers in the area who heard her claim him to be a runaway. As officers of the law, we'd no choice but to check her story out. It's our duty to do so and alert our counterparts in the area we suspect he'd go to be on the look out for him. Because many run-aways end up being killed by older more experienced criminals and without those reports we often can't identify them when they are. Bad things happen to young people who are without an appropriate guardian. And Vernon Dursley had spent all of Harry's life telling him exactly what happens to boys ungrateful enough for the shelter they've been given to run away from that shelter."

"We found no report because there was no report to find. They'd never filed one because he'd never run away. He didn't run away because he never got the chance. Even if he'd thought to do so. Finding the couple hadn't reported the boy as either missing or as a runaway, it naturally started an investigation. The coppers had no choice but to open an investigation. We all knew the boy was only a child. Just as we all knew he was now a missing child."

"That investigation would, in time, take down a whole lot of high placed people around here. People who'd been helping the Dursley couple cover up the bad behavior of their own son as well as the mistreatment of their nephew. Some, like those who covered up for Dudley, honestly believed the adults would handle the matter appropriately once they got him home. But others, like the Superintendent at the school and the Section Chief down at the station house, Vernon had blackmailed. Both those men knew the Potter child was actually a good boy while the Dursley boy was on a hard road to prison."

"For those of us who thought we knew the residents of Number Four though, the whole thing made us think. For the first time since that little boy was taken in as a resident of Number Four, we began to realize he never did anything to deserve the life he led here. He was a sweet, well-mannered, responsible and helpful child. Yet we never saw it. Because we didn't want to see it."

"To this day, I don't know what became of the child. We never proved they killed him. But we never proved they didn't either. All we did prove was the boy led a life of hell under their roof and that somehow they had gotten rid of him when they got tired of having him around. We actually have no idea what they did with or to him. All we know is the last time anyone saw him was September the first of 1991."

"When the investigators finally got inside the house, they found plenty of evidence of the couples' mistreatment of the boy. The most damning evidence came from the mouth and actions of their own son. Dudley Dursley definitely isn't a bright young man. He happily showed the officers where his cousin had slept in the house. When asked why his cousin had slept in the boot cupboard instead of a bedroom, which the house has four of, Dudley quite complacently told them his cousin was a Freak and no Freak deserves to sleep as a normal person does. Freaks should be grateful for what they're given and never ask for anything normal people have. It was as those statements made the rounds of the neighborhood those of us on this street and who went to Petunia's garden and tea parties realized Harry did all the work at Number Four."

"They treated the boy as a slave and told him he owed it to them as they were giving him a roof over his head and clothes to cover his person with. He did the cooking and the cleaning as well as the yard work and a great deal, if not all, the maintenance around the place including the twice yearly weatherizing. We'd seen him doing it. Year after year and never thought a thing of it. And we knew he'd been doing all of it for years before he'd disappeared. For which, they took all the credit. Even when buying tools and supplies appropriate for him to use, Vernon would take the credit for how well maintained his yards were. We could see the tools he bought were much too small for him to use and he knew we could tell those tools weren't for his use. Still, he looked us in the eye and lied to us. Year after year."

"Petunia did the same thing with the ladies. She took the credit for the festive food and drinks served to any guest who might happen to visit her home just as she did for the immaculate condition of the interior. And the beauty of the gardens she had him plant and maintain each year. The ladies discovered in the last few years he was known to have lived in that house, she didn't even design the yard layout. Harry did it all. The beauty of that yard was completely his doing for all that they bought the tools and plants he needed to create it. And that yard was a marvel of what could be accomplished. It won several neighborhood awards which Petunia gladly accepted with a dissembling smile and words about how she'd worked so hard on the yard all season never thinking about actually winning the award. She'd always claim she just liked the look and smell of the flowers."

"But all of us can remember seeing the boy, Harry, doing the actual work. Well, what was done in the yards anyway. The ladies can remember seeing him doing the clean-up or cooking something in the kitchen and from that, we decided it wasn't just the outside of the house the child took care of. And they can remember hearing Dudley complaining to his mother about how something he wanted to use or wear, Harry had moved or hadn't cleaned or repaired yet. How he wanted this or that to eat but Harry hadn't made it so he couldn't have it. That told the ladies Harry did all the inside work as well."

"Well, that and Dudley's mouth anyway. I did tell you Dudley is something of an idiot, didn't I? That boy just didn't know when to shut up and he spent the months of the investigation happily answering any and all questions put to him about his cousins treatment in his home. No matter how hard his parents worked to cover everything he let spill up, there was just no denying the couple had been mistreating one of their charges for a good number of years. Probably ever since they'd found the child on their doorstep."

"Which was another revelation we hadn't actually known until the investigation revealed it. They'd never actually had legal custody of Harry as we believed they did because they didn't follow standard procedure when they found him asleep on the step. If they had, there's a good chance the boy'd be alive and healthy today. The boy had lived with them since he was a baby and they'd never once filed the proper paperwork for custody of him. He wasn't their ward by law which, in their mind, meant they could treat him however they wished. Because he was a child the law didn't see or recognize."

"In retrospect, I guess it's rather hard to convince a child that the way you treat another child in the privacy of your own home isn't something to brag to strangers about. Or even that sometimes attention isn't a good thing when you've spent all that child's life chasing after it like an alcoholic chases the bartender with a new shipment of their favorite poison."

"But Dudley was reveling in the attention of the investigators and he happily told them anything they asked about. Even a few things they didn't know to ask about. Such as the arrangement in the garden shed that Dudley claimed was for when the family went on overnight or weekend trips. The Freak was never allowed to go with them as vacations were only for normal people and he wasn't a normal person. He was a Freak. But he also couldn't be allowed to stay in the house alone or be left free to wander the neighborhood. So Vernon would shackle Harry to a post in the shed. He'd put bucket within reach of the post and Petunia would put some food into a dog food dish they used when Vernon's sister came to visit with her bulldog along with some bottles of tap water. He had to be miserable locked up in that shed like that. Yet we, who made it our business to keep a close eye on him, never noticed."

He fell silent puffing away at his pipe releasing clouds of sweet smelling cherry smoke into the air. He was quiet for so long, Breezy feared he was done talking though she still had questions to ask. Finally he sighed and told her, "I can still see him up on a ladder cleaning out the gutters after a big rain storm came through here when he was four. And struggling to manipulate the heavy lawn mower as he trimmed the grass. It damn near killed me when I saw the post in that shed and learned what they'd used it for. They kept that child a prisoner in their home and neither I nor anyone else ever saw it. Not until the boy was gone."

"What happened to him? And them?" Breezy couldn't help but ask.

"Him? I don't know. He was eleven the last time I saw him. So tiny you'd never believe he actually was eleven years old. He had a paper bag in his hands and was getting into the company car Vernon was driving that year. The trunk of the car was packed and it looked like the family was getting ready to take another of their weekend trips somewhere. As I said before, it was 1 September and the new school year was about to begin. But even if it hadn't been I doubt anyone would've thought twice about it because at that time we didn't know about the post in the shed and their policy of never taking him with them on their excursions. Even when Vernon came home that night, angry and upset without Harry, none of us thought twice about what might have happened to him. Some of the neighbors claim they saw him during the month of August. But I never did. Nor would it have mattered if they had. We all agree Harry has never been seen in the area since that September morning."

"As for what happened to the Dursley family, they all got sent to prison on multiple counts of child abuse and enslavement. Without a body they couldn't be charged for murder. Or even a suspicion of murder. But there was plenty of evidence the boy had lived in the house with them and was systematically abused by them all of his life. And that's what they were charged with. Abuse. Severe and traumatic ongoing abuse."

"Even the boy, Dudley got sent to prison. Juvenile prison but still a prison. There's not a doubt in my mind, both the adults were guilty of that. Vernon was also charged with possible homicide and the illegal disposal of a corpse since he was the person last seen in the company of the missing child. The reasoning for the charge was because if he had killed the child then he definitely had disposed of the body illegally. Normally that charge would be dismissed for lack of proof that the boy was actually deceased. But apparently the investigators didn't like Vernon who refused to admit to any wrongdoing in the way he'd raised the missing child. He kept threatening to ruin them personally if they didn't let him go and stop harassing his good family."

"They'd found a surplus of blood evidence within the house and even in the company car to suggest the boy had been subjected to one too many beatings. It was hypothesized that once away from the residence where it was so easy for the couple to hide their demonic natures, Vernon had lost his temper with the child and beaten him again causing the blood loss the investigators found in the car. The judge who heard the case let the charges stand because if Vernon had killed the child during that beating, it stood to reason he'd also disposed of the body illegally since the child has never been discovered. Dead or alive."

"As for Dudley, well as I said, he's also in prison. Juvenile prison but still a prison. There was quite a line of witnesses willing to testify under oath of what a bad boy Dudley Dursley was and how much mayhem and chaos he caused around here. All things that were routinely blamed on Harry. Most of those witnesses were our very own children who'd been trying to tell us the truth for years but whom we'd refused to listen to. The judge handed down a sentence for him that would see him locked away until he reaches his majority. Actually more than that possibly. It all depends on his behavior in the correctional facility. If he behaves himself, he'll be released on his twenty-first birthday. If he doesn't, he'll transfer to an adult prison for the continuation of his time earned by his misspent youth."

"It seems that once people around here woke up and began realizing the Dursley's really weren't who we all thought they were, the children of the neighborhood began talking again. And they were angry with us. So angry, they'd quit talking to us at all. Justifiably so, really. In our arrogance, we hadn't even really realized when the kids had stopped talking to us. But that's what happens when you call your kids liars and refuse to listen to them when they know they're telling you the truth."

"Needless to say, we, the adults of this area, had to eat a lot of crow back then. Our kids really relished telling us they told us so and more than one of them was bitterly angry with us for not listening to them. They wanted us to listen to them because they knew what we refused to see or hear. They were trying to help Harry get a better living situation because he was being hurt by the people he lived with. Hurt in ways they'd been told adults weren't allowed to hurt kids. But we weren't listening. We wouldn't listen. They all thought Harry was a nice boy who deserved better guardians than his Aunt and Uncle. And they knew Dudley was nothing more than a bully who preyed on them because he could get away with it."

"Once again all those stories blamed on Harry were brought into the light of day and rehashed in the neighborhood gossip mill. Our kids took the time to inform us bluntly of just how blind, deaf and stupid we'd allowed ourselves to become as they delighted in walking us down memory lane to prove to us all how we'd known at the time Harry couldn't have been the boy committing those acts as we'd seen him somewhere else at the time something was occurring."

"In the end it sparked a revolt. Home owners who'd had their homes broken into, ransacked and burglarized or vandalized went down to the station house and filed complaints where they could, showing receipts for repairs or stolen items when they had them. Sometimes the evidence included pictures of stolen items in their possession or vandalized and destroyed property. Shop owners did the same, this time with video evidence in hand. Evidence that made it clear Harry Potter wasn't the one who'd broken into, and stolen from, their place of business. Evidence they'd kept even as they believed it unreliable as it showed Dudley as the perpetrator when they believed Harry had done the crime. Parents flooded the station house wanting to know what they could do to get the menace that was Dudley Dursley off their streets. And through it all, Petunia and Vernon continued to loudly and forcefully blame Harry for their own sons bad acts."

"But once the investigators began looking at Dudley, it wasn't hard to discover just what kind of a delinquent he truly was. A lot of petty cases had gone cold simply because the Constables didn't know who the evidence they'd gathered matched up to. They had fingerprints, clothing fibers and shoe casts to compare whenever they caught someone who might be responsible. They even had hair, tissue, and blood samples left behind at a few of the scenes. They'd heard the local bad boy was supposed to be the dark haired boy who lived at Number Four Privet Drive but their evidence didn't match him. He was too small. Too slightly built to have committed the crimes in question. So they'd never pulled him in to compare their gathered evidence with his DNA. However, Dudley did match the particulars. So they got his prints and ran them through their computers and did a line-up where the case was fresh enough to lend to an eye to eye identification."

"By the time they were finished, the list of charges against Dudley ran fifteen pages. And those charges were only for the crimes the constables knew they could get a conviction on. All were petty crimes but still, even petty crimes can add up to a hefty sentence if you have enough of them. As I understand it, they had over a hundred crimes they could link him to spanning years. But some the evidence was flimsy and others the statue of limitations was nearing an end or had already run out. A few, the original plaintiff had moved away or didn't accurately remember the details any longer."

Dudley was surprised when the constables arrested him and, like most bully boys, started whining about how his Dad would have their jobs for treating him the way they were. When he wasn't crying for his Momma, that is. When he was finally made to understand why he was being arrested, the stupid boy claimed they had the wrong boy. That Harry had done those bad things and that if they didn't believe him then all they needed to do was ask his Mum and Dad. Because Harry was the bad seed. Not Dudley."

"And of course Petunia claimed Dudley was telling them the truth. She claimed Harry had Dudley under some kind of a spell making Dudley do bad things for him. Because Harry was just a bad seed boy who would never be good. How could he when he'd been born to the wrong side of the blankets by ne'er-do-well parents who'd killed themselves while breaking the laws of the land. He could never be a good law-abiding citizen considering who his parents had been. Which was why he was framing her good boy, Dudley for his deviancy. She literally sat there in the police station and claimed her little sister, Lily Evans, was a scarlet woman who'd trapped her husband into marrying her and then got drunk with him while he was driving her around to her clients with their baby in the car. Noone believed her. We couldn't. Not any more. Now we believed only the evidence. And there was no evidence whatsoever to say Lily Potter had ever been anything but a fine upstanding young woman who had died too young. Because that was Harry's mother's name. Lily Potter nee Evans."

"What about his father? Was he the drunken sot she said he was? Maybe he was the ne'er-do-well parent she was meaning when she mentioned them?"

"No. That was another of Petunia's lies. Turns out he was a copper up in Wales. Worked undercover mostly. One night when he was home relaxing with his wife and son, one of his current targets broke into his home with the intention of killing the family. The only survivor was Harry. How he survived, we don't know. But we do know James Potter died honorably. Trying to protect his family. His job cost his wife her life just as it cost him his own and left his son an orphan. His father should have been honored for his efforts in making society safe for families like her own. Instead, she bad-mouthed him and called him a drunk sot living on the dole."

"But back to the story. Stop distracting me, Breezy Girl, or we'll be here all night." The older man smiled at his niece as she laughed quietly.

"Some of the things Dudley was being charged with happened well after the last reported sighting of Harry in this neighborhood. So no one was believing him. Added to that, was the fact that when the constables were interviewing him and giving him scenarios for the various offenses he'd stupidly correct them and fill in the details they either hadn't known or deliberately got wrong. So there was no doubt Dudley was the culprit they were looking for. Still Dudley blamed his cousin for his own bad acts. Tried telling the officers Harry had cast a spell on him to make him do those bad things. That they should be going after his freak of a cousin and leave him alone."

"And just as Dudley was going down so were his three main gang members. Because we did know those boys were Dudley's friends. Not Harry's. So once it was made clear Dudley was the neighborhood thug, it wasn't hard for us to realize who belonged to the gang. The gang Petunia had told us was Harry's group of friends."

"Piers Anthony Polkiss, Malcolm David Dewentry-Long and Dennis Emery Pierpont were also picked up and charged with a multitude of petty crimes. None of them have very long sentences and all will be released when they become adults. Well, except for Dudley. My understanding is, he'll transfer to an adult prison once he is no longer a juvenile. Because he isn't behaving in his new home."

"Still, it doesn't change the fact that they all went to juvenile prison for the crimes they committed and every last one of them blamed those crimes on Harry. Even when they knew he wasn't here to be blamed. And yes, all four of those boys knew Harry was no longer living in the neighborhood. But they'd been blaming him for their misdeeds for so long I doubt it even occurred to them they wouldn't be believed any longer."

"We, the community, let those boys down. We let them act up and then place the blame for their bad acts onto an innocent child to avoid the punishment their acts had earned them. And because we knew the truth, even if we refused to face it, we didn't even try to take the appropriate actions once their bad acts were discovered and accusations were made. Because even in our willful blindness, we refused to punish an innocent child for the actions of others not under his control."

"Funny thing is, if we hadn't been so determined to see Vernon and Petunia Dursley as good upstanding pillars of our community, none of those four boys would now be serving time with charges on their records to follow them into adulthood. We, and their parents, would've caught them as children and put a stop to their bad behavior before it could become prosecuteable crimes. Because, except for Dudley, none of those other boys are truly bad kids. Even Dudley isn't really a bad kid. He's just stupid. And spoilt. But that isn't a crime."

"Petunia will be released long before her husband but well after her son. Dudley, who'd turned thirteen by the time he went to court, got ten years. Eight of which he'll serve at the juvenile facility. The last two could be dropped when he becomes an adult if he straightens up and begins behaving now."

"Petunia, however, got a fifteen year sentence with no possibility of parole or downgrading. My understanding is that she's being held in solitary confinement due to news of her crimes getting out to her fellow inmates. Apparently, when she was transferred in she still hadn't learned to shut her mouth and word got around about what she'd done and endorsed her husband and son of doing. She spent quite a few days and nights in the prison infirmary as her fellow inmates showed her what they thought of her. It turns out, female criminals do NOT take kindly to those convicted of harming children in their care. Especially when the reason for that mistreatment is jealousy of the child's deceased mother."

"Added to the charges relating to how they'd treated Harry, there were a few charges related to how she and her husband had raised their own son. Most of those charges were leveled against her only as she was the one facilitating them. It seems Social Services feel the couple abused Dudley just as much as they abused Harry. Dudley was never punished for his bad acts and taught to lay the blame for everything on his cousin. He was overly-indulged to the point where he literally doesn't understand the word no and will seek to take whatever it is he wants whether it is his to take or not. His weight was also a point of abuse according to the officials as he hadn't ever been taught moderation in his eating or encouraged to exercise and now his excessive weight is proving to be a health risk for him. Chances are good that if the authorities can't get his weight under control Dudley Dursley will also die a young man in an old man's body. Or maybe that should be an old man in a young man's body. Either way, it's not a good thing."

"The judge felt that as she'd willingly conspired to enslave a child to the will of herself and her husband for ten years she needed to serve at least that long herself. And since she turned a blind eye and even assisted her husband in mistreating the child for every perceived flaw or mistake made, he tacked on a few more years. He also felt she had assisted her husband in making her victim disappear and was holding mute on where the child could be found now. So she got fifteen years in a women's correctional facility."

"Vernon got thirty years since it's suspected he's the one who not only killed Harry but disposed of the body to avoid being discovered as a child murderer. And like Petunia, he has no possibility of being paroled until he has served his full sentence. Not even good behavior within the prison will see him being released early."

"He might even receive a few more years tacked onto the end of his sentence. This time for the mismanagement of company assets and funds. Funny thing is, once he was arrested and the charges hit the papers, his firm began to look into his business practices. They discovered several irregularities and mistreatment of other employees. They'd been hearing rumors about him and his treatment of others for years. But, like the people of the neighborhood, they'd dismissed all of them as just the whining of jealous people looking to blame others for their own shortcomings. Now they're discovering those complaints were legit."

"The press release triggered a hail storm of outrage across the nation and everyone seemed to want to see him hang. It isn't often we hear of a case of child slavery in addition to child abuse leading to child murder these days and there was no doubt they were doing exactly that to Petunia's nephew. The addition of child abuse charges for the treatment of Dudley only made the story more sensational. And you know, it was really the child slavery charge that made the public so upset with them. We've grown used to hearing about child abuse. Most people don't even stop to blink when another abused child is discovered. But child slavery? Now that's something we don't hear about every day."

"When they were convicted, it was the Queen herself who declared the couple would be ineligible for Parole and any avenue of getting their sentence commuted to lesser time served, would be blocked. Because Harry had no option of early release from their treatment. So why should they have that option now that we know what they did to him. They will serve every single day of their sentence for their actions against an innocent little boy who never did them any harm."

"By the time Vernon was actually convicted, his firm, Grundig's Drills, was ready to bring their own lawsuit against him. It's still in the works but I have no doubt by the time it reaches the courts, Vernon Dursley will find himself facing many more charges that will result in more prison time for him. Because the Queen's ruling on the other case will have to be served separate from any additional time they might be handed."

"Seems when the Company Directors began digging into affairs in his section, they found more than one of his secretaries and underlings had been unjustly terminated. The secretaries said they were terminated when they refused to perform duties outside the description of their job not limited to but including going away with Vernon for a weekend conference when no conference was on the schedule or sharing hotel rooms with him when there was a business meeting requiring travel. Two former secretaries actually turned out to have children they claimed belonged to Vernon and were the reason for their own termination. It seems he didn't want a pregnant secretary. Especially as there was a good chance the child would look like him when it was born which would naturally get back to the neighborhood and embarrass Petunia. The others, usually the male employees, claimed they were terminated when they'd had a really good sales record for a month that outshone Vernon's own. Naturally, company records showed Vernon took credit for their work but the people who had purchased those orders knew exactly who the salesman had been that they'd dealt with. Many of them even had the business card the salesman had given them at the time."

"Then there was the embezzlement charges and the misappropriation of company resources. Seems the new car he'd always brag of buying each year wasn't actually his car at all. It was a company car that he was allowed to use for company business only. He was a high level salesman who often had to go to different job sites to make his sales. For that, he needed a reliable company car. So long as he kept track of the mileage, gas and maintenance charges for the car, the company would reimburse him for everything related to it's upkeep. Because he could use the company car, he never bothered to buy a car for his personal or family use. And since most the stores around here are within walking distance, he never felt the need to buy Petunia her own car. But taking her out to a show or for dinner, or going on a family vacation, wasn't company business and violated the terms of agreement between him and the company."

"So not only does he have a thirty year sentence for his treatment of his wife's nephew, but he could receive up to an additional twenty years for his work related offenses. And because of the Queen's ruling he won't be able to serve even a day of them until he has finished serving his Harry Potter related time. Plus, that new time will also fall under her rules of no early release or commuted sentencing. So he'll serve each and every day of his combined sentence. Considering he's already approaching his fortieth birthday, it's safe to say Vernon Dursley won't be a free man again until he's old enough for a retirement center. Which given what he did, he may actually qualify to be in at the expense of the Crown."

"He was my peer, Breezy Girl. I respected and admired him so much. But he was nothing more than the scum I spent my working life putting away. And I never saw it."

The middle aged man fell silent his long tale at an end. At his side, his niece lit another cigarette and thought about what she'd heard. Finally, she turned to him and asked, "Why were you thinking about this tonight? I mean, I understand this is a lesson we all need to remember. But why specifically were you thinking about it tonight?"

"Because according to the papers, Little Whining has lost another son. Piers Anthony Polkiss was found this morning hanging from the rafters outside his dorm room. The coroner estimates he was dead for at least two hours before the officials discovered him. An investigation is underway but authorities suspect he fell back into his old habits again and this time someone decided it'd be the last time. The counselors at the facility have already been interviewed and they say Piers was well known to point the finger at one of his new floor mates for things he, himself, did. Usually dark haired residents who are small for their age and skinny. Naturally, this behavior wasn't appreciated by the rest of his floor. But that is exactly the behavior growing up here as the best mate of Dudley Dursley taught the boy was acceptable. Once again we failed a child of the neighborhood in a major way and that child has paid for our mistake with his life. Yes, he made his own choices to behave as he did. But we taught him it was acceptable."

Having told his tale the man picked up his pipe and packed a new wad of tobacco into it. He lit a stick he kept in the ashtray from the burning candle and touched it to the tamped down tobacco, drawing deep on the cherry red, smoldering weed before shaking the stick to put out the small flame. A careful dunk into the flat bottomed mug and the now dead stick was placed back into the ashtray until the next time it was needed. The smell of his tobacco quickly overwhelmed the scent of burnt pine in the air.

The street was in full darkness now but neither the man nor his niece made any move to go back into the house. The children had all been pulled back inside their homes for the night. Even the small clusters of teenagers had gone elsewhere now. They sat in silence smoking their favorite brand of tobacco knowing there was nothing left to say. The street was quiet and calm. Peaceful and pleasant. Life would go on regardless of what had happened in this neighborhood so few years ago.

 **Ending notes: As you may or may not know, Vernon would never be charged with possible homicide or for the illegal disposal of a corpse as in a court of law there is no such thing as 'possible'. The investigators are supposed to know whether or not a murder has occurred before they bring someone into court. Nor would a charge of illegal disposal of a corpse be leveled without an actual body or proof that a body has been disposed of. Which the investigators in this case don't have.**

 **And before you go telling me that Vernon and Petunia weren't abusing Harry or treating him as their personal slave, I know that already. Though on the issue of abuse, I don't agree with you. I've four boys of my own, three of which are grown now and I know damn well none of them ever slept in a boot cupboard even when I lived in a place that didn't have a separate bedroom for each of them to use. Nor did I make any of them start cooking before they began attending school. Pour themselves a bowl of cereal? Only if I wanted to sweep the floor when they were finished. And never but never did I let them pour the milk onto the cereal in their chosen bowl. I don't like house cleaning that much that I'm willing to sweep and mop floors before drinking my morning coffee.**

 **I do know Ms. Rowling has stated she didn't see their treatment of him as abusive. But then Ms. Rowling was young and unmarried with no children of her own when she wrote the Harry Potter books. I'd like to think she knows better now. Or at least, has a more realistic idea of what children can reasonably be expected to be able to do at what ages.**

 **But that's what poetic license is all about. I took a few elements of her story and extrapolated upon them. Harry did live in that house with Vernon and Petunia and he did sleep in the boot cupboard while living there. It's also quite clear in the books that he did a majority of the chores at the house beginning at a very young age and never had his own clothing bought specifically to fit his body. That, to me, is abuse because they had four bedrooms in the house and definitely had the money to buy him his own clothing to wear. It's also abuse when one child does the majority of the chores and is punished for failing to do them correctly or fast enough while another does nothing. At least, it's abuse in my opinion. Abuse of both the children in the home.**

 **I took some poetic license with the names in the story because I honestly don't remember the names of Dudley's gang of friends outside of Piers, Dennis and Malcolm. If they were given middle and last names, I don't recall what they were. And as I said at the beginning of this story, this story is fanfiction driven and not based on any event Ms. Rowling wrote of in her series. I hope you enjoyed the story.**


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